About

The Equal Justice Society is building an inclusive and multiracial democracy by confronting barriers and historic harms to Black, Indigenous, and marginalized people of all identities.

EJS champions harm repair as a unifying force, protecting and expanding policies promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion; cradle-to-career multicultural education; implicit bias research and development; and reparations, while prioritizing Black Women’s health equity and fairness in education.

The Oakland, California-based national legal organization is an innovator integrating social science, especially disparate impact and implicit bias, into legal and policy advocacy, public education, and thought leadership. EJS also engages the arts and artists in creating work and performances that allow wider audiences to understand social justice issues and struggles.

PDF: Keeping Up the Fight: EJS’s Key Moments from 2000-2025

Eva Paterson co-founded EJS and served as its President until August 31, 2022.

EJS STAFF

EJS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

  • Kelly Dermody, Managing Partner of San Francisco office, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP
  • Fernando Gaytan (Board Chair) – Senior Attorney, Earthjustice
  • Eric Gibbs, Partner, Gibbs Mura, A Law Group
  • Michael Harris – Retired, former Senior Attorney, Juvenile Justice, National Center for Youth Law
  • Lisa Holder – EJS President
  • Raymond C. Marshall – Partner, Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP
  • Shauna Marshall – The Honorable Raymond L. Sullivan Professor of Law, Co-Director of the Center on Racial and Economic Justice, UC Law San Francisco; Equal Justice Society co-founder
  • Donald K. Tamaki – Senior Counsel, Minami Tamaki LLP

ADVISORY BOARD

  • Ellen Barry, attorney and one of the nation’s leading prisoners’ rights advocates, founder of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, based in Oakland, Calif.
  • John Bonifaz, attorney and co-founder and President of Free Speech For People, former member of EJS board of directors, based in Amherst, Mass.
  • Ernest Crim III, social justice influencer, advocate, and educator, based in Chicago, Ill.
  • Kim Kruckel – retired executive director of the Child Care Law Center, based in Berkeley, Calif.
  • Seith Mann, award-winning TV and film director based in Atlanta, Ga.
  • Pamela Perkins-Dwyer, Major Gifts Officer, Los Angeles Master Chorale
  • Camille Rich, Dorothy W. Nelson Professor of Law and Sociology, University of Southern California Gould School of Law
  • Nate Smith, Partner at Brown, Neri, Smith & Khan LLP, trial lawyer experienced in complex commercial litigation, based in Los Angeles, Calif.
  • Sheila Warren – CEO, Project Liberty Institute

FORMER BOARD MEMBERS

  • Eva Paterson, Co-Founder and President (2000-2022)
  • Charles Ogletree (1952-2023) – Professor of Law, Harvard Law School (founding board member and former board chair)
  • Anthony Solana, Jr. – President and Chairperson, For People of Color, Inc. (former board chair)
  • Kate Kendell – Executive Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights (former board chair)
  • Priscilla Ocen – Professor of Law at Loyola Law School (former board chair)
  • John Bonifaz – Co-Founder and Director, Free Speech For People
  • Maria Blanco, Vice President, Civic Engagement, California Community Foundation (founding board member)
  • James J. Brosnahan – Senior Partner, Morrison Foerster LLP (founding board member)
  • Barbara A. Caulfield (1947 – 2010), former Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of California (former board member)
  • Dorothy M. Ehrlich, Deputy Executive Director, national American Civil Liberties Union
  • Alfred Fraijo, Jr. – Partner, Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP
  • Kelly McCreary – Actor, Producer
  • Pamela Perkins-Dwyer – Major Gifts Officer, Los Angeles Master Chorale
  • Margaret M. Russell – Professor of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law (founding board member)
  • Jayashri Srikantiah – Professor of Law and Director of Stanford Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic
  • Sheila Warren – CEO, Project Liberty Institute
  • Tobias Wolff – Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School
  • Eric Yamamoto – Professor of Law, University of Hawai`i School of Law (founding board member)

Founding donors: Elizabeth Cabraser, Jack Londen, Quinn Delaney and Wayne Jordan, Ford Foundation-Alan Jenkins, Sara Ríos, Open Society Institute-Gara LaMarche, Catherine Samuels, John Kowal and Raquiba LaBrie;

Founding board members: Charles Ogletree, John Bonifaz, James J. Brosnahan, Kate Kendell, Tobias B. Wolff, Eric K. Yamamoto, Maria Blanco and Margaret Russell;

Founders: Eva Paterson, Abim Thomas, Susan Serrano, Carrie Avery, Sheila Thomas, Michelle Alexander, Joan Graff, Margaret Russell, Margalynne Armstrong, Shauna Marshall, Angela Harris, Stephanie Wildman, Cheryl Stevens, April Williams, Norm Spaulding, and H. Jesse Arnelle;

First staff members: Eva Paterson, Susan Serrano, Allegra Churchill, Swati Kapadia, Rico Oyola, Joe Lucero, Archana Sahgal, David Salniker, Keith Kamisugi, Elaine Elinson, and Ginger Johnson.

Page updated December 19, 2025